Interesting news around charities and volunteers

The NCVO (National Council for Voluntary Organisations) has published a couple of interesting documents recently, around employing staff and volunteers.

Skills gaps in charities

Understanding what skills are existent or missing in the voluntary sector workforce – and what challenges organisations are facing around workforce planning – is an important step to better supporting the sector, particularly in the current climate. Factors like the changing funding environment and the development of digital technologies are having an impact on the sector’s workforce and the skills needed. In addition, with Brexit on the horizon there is a possibility that voluntary organisations will see skills gaps increase in the future.

NCVO’s previous research on skills includes the Voluntary Sector Skills Survey 2007, which explored issues surrounding skills in voluntary organisations. It found that a quarter (24%) had vacancies that were hard to fill, of which 37% applicants lacked the skills required for the role. It also highlighted that almost a third (29%) had under-skilled staff within their organisation. More recently, the 2011 UK Voluntary Sector Workforce Almanac presented some data on skills in the voluntary sector.

In this research briefing, we aim to provide sector leaders and policy-makers with an up-to-date picture of the sector’s skills and skills gaps by:

identifying which skills staff in voluntary organisations have

examining how common skills gaps are in the voluntary sector by types of roles and size of organisations

exploring how skills gaps are impacting on voluntary organisations and how they are responding.

You can read a blog on the story here which links to the briefing and full research paper.

How proposed changes to sexual harassment law may affect charities and volunteers